


Simple Words

by Anonymous



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-27
Updated: 2015-07-02
Packaged: 2018-01-13 21:57:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1242088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Why does the empty space above you scare you so, merely because you can see it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KiraWonrey (ArsitRouke)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArsitRouke/gifts).



> I decided to write a scenario that had been following me around for a while.

Sand beneath your boots replaces the dry desert dust and dirt, and the sound changes. It's slight; the dry rasp of grating silicon is not so different from that of the finer dust scraping against the sunbaked mud, but it's enough to make you look down. Without your noticing it, a boundary has presented itself to you and been ignored - as is so often the case, be it an emotional limit or a physical one.

A blazing row and a missed turn are not so different, really: each is the result of one too many missed signs, of going too far. Each is entirely your fault.

Brown turns to silver grains below you and a strange urge to step away fills you. There has never been anything as safe and welcoming in your eyes as that dull brown; nothing as terrifying as the gleaming sand clinging to your soles. You're off balance, and you're scared that something has changed which cannot be undone.

Step back.

Again.

_Again._

You were right, weren't you? Weren't you? Turn around and the sand will stretch on for as far as the eye can see, light scattering off the sand from... what? There is no longer a sun overhead, and with it has gone the sky. There is no colour to it, no hue remaining. None. Black, white, the infinity between... no, none of these. Instead there is a gap which pulls at the eye and leaves it aching and unfocused. Void above and earth below. As it has always been. So why does the empty space above you scare you so, merely because you can see it?

Something fractures for a moment, be it you or the desert, and when the edges meld back into one there is a building stood before you. Tall and old, the paint peeling and atop it the cracked casing of a light. A filament sputters inside it, weak and flickering, before it dies. Beneath the remnants of the light is a faded sign. Only the letters "ity" and "Radi" are left. The wind and sand have done for the rest, you suppose. 

The door is open.

You step inside, and there are no creaks or groans from the warped timber even as it bends ever so slightly under your feet.  You are the only sound in the entire building, pumping blood and whistling breath suddenly loud in the dark corridor.

Conscious of every sound you make, you walk softly down the corridor. Every room you try is empty, in that your petty and limited worldview sees no life in them. You're wrong. You always are, remember? 

You had forgotten that, somewhere along the line. The truth in it remains. 


	2. Chapter 2

The seventh door on your left holds something you can see, and something you cannot. A man slumped over a desk, an unplugged radio mike useless on the wood by his hand. Thin and bloodless fingers are curled around the cord, and you are unsettled. Your loneliness should lift at the sight, the mere knowledge that there is another person in this place should relieve you, but it doesn't.

Is it a person? As still and lax as the figure is, you cannot tell. Moving closer with cautious steps, you reach out to touch his shoulder. He is warm, but it's not the heat of a person, it's that of sunbaked plains and stirrings beneath the ground. It burns. You snatch your hand away, studying his face.

He's not handsome; nor  is he plain. The bones of him look slightly off, the angles just a degree too sharp to look normal. They look like they could tear the skin when next he smiles, cut through him with the slightest movement. Golden eyes fly open, and he begins to breathe the dusty air for the first time since you entered the room. 

A voice like black treacle fills the room. It's sweet and cloying, impossibly smooth, and it sucks at you in a way that a noise should not be able. It feels like you could drown in it and never resurface.

You can't tell what he's talking about, but there's a smile in the words trickling through the air. Hopefully a pleasant one. His face is blank, his eyes flickering minutely as he gazes at the blank wall. He's not using a language you recognise, but the blunt sounds remind you of the European tongues they taught in school. English, perhaps, or German?

There's an echo to every word.

In the room opposite this one sits another man. He's at an identical desk, speaking quietly into an identical microphone. Same white shirt, same wire-rimmed glasses, but it's a different man in so many ways. His features are softer, less alien, and in this they've lost the striking quality. He looks generic, like an identikit rather than a person. His eyes are solid black, with a faint rim of gold delinating the pupil.

You can see a smile on his face, but it's as unsettling as the one you can hear in his lilting voice.

When you reach out to brush his shoulder, he feels so cold. It burns.


	3. Chapter 3

You should care. You should be concerned for these men, who are alone in the middle of the desert. There is neither food nor water for miles, the heat is incredible, they should be _dead._

You look inside yourself for a moment, just in case there is some flicker of worry for these two people in their strange enchantment. Nothing in particular presents itself. You consider that you are also trapped far from any source of food or water, with no phone or transport. No sudden fear manifests itself within. Probably there is some cause for your dispassion, for the apathy that grips you. You do not particularly care.

Palm open, you hold your hand near to the second man's mouth as he talks, wary for a moment as if he is some wild thing that might lunge forward and bite. There is no movement of air against your skin. What you can feel is not cool, as if his coldness were leeching away the warmth from around him, but the same oppressive heat as the rest of the room. Carefully, you check for a pulse, testing a hypothesis you will not so much as formulate until there is no way around it. 

No tell-tale flutter meets your fingertips. The speaker continues to smile, eyes bright and lifeless. He continues to speak without breath, the flush to his cheeks not brought by hot blood but by something else entirely.

The other man has a pulse, slow and lazy, and his breath smells of dust.

Seeing nothing more to do, you leave the room, keeping the door open behind you. Further along the corridor, past several empty rooms, there is a final door. It is normal, appearing the same as every other door you have seen. No dread runes or sigils mark it, nothing oozes from beneath and sickens the soul. There are no gouges marked into it. The thought occurs to you that the gouges may simply be on the other side, and you note this before moving on to other thoughts. It is closed, where all other doors have stood ajar and inviting.

None of the other doors have, thus far, proved tempting. It is only this, the barrier, which quickens your blood and breath. More than anything, now, you wish to know what it hides. There must, you are sure, be something within of interest or value. Else why would it be closed?

You reach out. Fingers close about the handle, and you realise. Somebody is watching you. They are observing, anticipating every bit as eagerly as you. Something is supposed to happen, some event is about to unfurl and they want to know what happens next.

You breathe in, holding within you the desert and its scalding heat. When you breathe out, you let go of the door handle. Your fingers are reluctant to do so at first, their grip strong. Something is present behind the door, something intriguing and exciting. You will not get the chance to see its like again if you leave this door alone. You should open it. The watcher wants you to open it. You will be left poorer if you do not.

You step back, step away from the temptation. It does not lessen with distance, even as you turn away and begin to walk down the hallway once more. You have other things to do, you tell yourself, things you may not be able to if you open that door. It will be waiting there when you have done them. You do not have to forsake it altogether.

Reaching the two speakers, not yet lapsed into silence, you consider the difficulty of the problem. Each is painful to the touch. One burns, the other numbs and hurts in equal measure. Each is dangerous, though you cannot quite tell why this seems to be. Something in the hindbrain, old and full of fear. But... The first seems like a simpler task. 

Wrapping your sleeve around your hand, you take a firm grip on the man's hand. You expect to have to lift him, dead and intractable weight, but instead he seems to stand as if in a dream, allowing himself to be led about. The heat is still intense, still burning, but you can just manage to hold on. You lead him out of his room, across the hallway, and to the threshold of his counterpart's room.

You lead him in, and the two of them turn to gaze at the other, eyes focused for the first time. The voices, which all this time have been murmuring quietly of matters you cannot comprehend, fall silent.

It had been your worry that you would have to work hard to chieve your goal, that you would have to manouver larger and unwilling bodies into the correct manner. All this work for the vaguest of suspicions; it had not seemed sensible. Instead, you find yourself unnecessary, watching unheeded as the two are drawn to one another, reaching out to make contact between them.

Skin brushes skin, and the world dissolves around you.

When you open your eyes, you are alone once more. Dry desert dust and dirt replace the sand beneath your boots. It sounds almost foreign to you, the smallest of differences, and you look down. The track behind you winds and wanders, but far in the distance is your home. You can smell the sea upon the breeze.

Dusting yourself down, you continue along the road to your destination. In your boots are grains of silver sand. Somewhere, two voices begin to speak in dissonant tandem once more.


End file.
